Investigate for yourselves

In response to the article/debate about global warming I am going to have to say I disagree with some of its viewpoints. I feel that the real issue isn’t about the media portraying this subject matter wrongly, but about people refusing to do some research on their own. If one relies on hearsay in the media then they will obviously come out with varying ideas of right and wrong. Consequently, that aspect of the debate cannot be argued. However, I completely disagree with the notion that there are a bunch of mad scientists and mathematicians sitting around manipulating graphs and numbers just for the sake of proving that global warming is real. Moreover, when thousands of scientists accept this scientific notion and only a hundred or so refute it, it makes it even less likely that these persons are “manipulating” computer programs. Also, the idea of trying to blame the recent warming on natural cycles holds no water at all. But, anyone who has looked at these natural cycles (Milankovitch cycles) knows that these take place over a long time period. They take place over thousands and thousands of years, most likely contributing to the Ice Age. The changes that are being talked about right now have only occurred over the last 180 years or less. This is a much too short time scale for it to be a “natural” cycle. But, one may ask what caused this change to take place? Can we say population increase and the industrial revolution? Another issue brought up that is completely incorrect is that the use of corn-based ethanol is cheaper to produce than gasoline. For every gallon of ethanol fuel it takes a gallon and a half of gasoline to produce it. This is only going to drive up the costs of ethanol fuel so the companies making it can have a net gain. Overall, I feel that it is important that people look at the data themselves and make their own assumptions. The hard evidence supports the fact that there is global warming over a short time scale that has never been seen in our planet’s past.